(Εὐστάθιος.)
1. Bishop of ANTIOCH, was a native of Side, a town in Pamphylia, but according to Nicetas Choniates (5.9), he was descended from a family of Philippi in Macedonia. He was a contemporary of the emperor Constantine the Great, and was at first bishop of Beroea in Syria, but the council of Nicaea appointed him bishop of Antioch. (Nicet. Chon. 5.6.) At the opening of the council of Nicaea he is said to have been the first who addressed the emperor in a panegyric. (Theodoret, 1.7 ) Eustathius was a zealous defender of the Catholic faith, and a bitter enemy of the Arians, who therefore did everything to deprive him of his position and influence. A synod of Arian prelates was convened at Antioch, at which such heavy, though unfounded, charges were brought against him, that he was deposed, and the emperor sent him into exile to Trajanopolis in Thrace, in A. D. 329 or 330. (Socrat. 1.24; Sozomen, 2.19; Theodoret, 1.21; Philostorg. 2.7.) A long time after, his innocence and the calumnies of his enemies became known through a woman who had been bribed to bear false witness against him, and who, on her death-bed, confessed her crime; but it was too late, for Eustathius had already died in his exile. He is praised by the ecclesiastical writers as one of the worthiest and holiest men. (Athanas. Ep. ad Solit p. 629; Sozomen. 2.19.)